Diving the Southwold, Polynesian and... the Britannic???

Techwise is a flurry with divers this week. As I sit and type, I'm up keeping our gas blender 'sanity-company' while we work magic with the molecules late into the night. Demmand is so high for technical gas fills and rentals that a bit of midnight mixer panel mischief is actually neccessary!

Its great to see the rising interest in Technical Diving in Malta and around the world. Frow what we see here, it is spanning generations and genders too! Only today we certified yet another female Tec diver on the first rung of her IANTD ladder. Meanhile, reporter-photographers Gareth and Howard are checking out the Southwold, with the Polynesien lined up for tomorrow - using their technical skills not just to go deep for deepsake, but to spend time getting great shots and helping to show the world what's down there.

Of course, we've got plenty worth reporting coming up too! Paul Toomer, out rebreather expert has been invited to make a dive on the legendary Britannic! Eons of planning preparation go into a project such as this (and it is a project, a mission and much bigger than a simple dive) so we'll be keeping you up to date with progress as we hear all about - so will you!

The Rebreathers Return!

The infamous Paul Toomer is back on Maltese shores and beginning a new rebreather course today with a fresh faced student.

There are many reasons why people use rebreathers, with a system that cleans your exhaled air and makes it breathable for another use - only small amounts of gas can be made to last for hours. This is a real plus when you're diving deep and expect to be hanging around in deco for quite some time.

There's also the more gentile benefit that in closed circuit, no bubbles are produced. This means that you are less offensive to the sensibilities of underwater organisms that might shy away from open circuit divers.

Whatever the reason you decide to go Closed Circuit, it's a heavy investment in time, equipment and education, so make sure to take your time in preparing for this transition. Then, when you're all set - give us a call and get the best training in town!

Poly by Golly

Ohhhhh yeaaaaah. Techwise just got back off the Poynesian and everyone is beaming as usual. This is the kind of dive that makes the trials fothe Trimix course allllll worth it!. At 60m, Trimix training is a must. But down there waiting for you are Barracudas amongst other wildlife and a fantastic wreck.

Joanne Simms of Odyssey Dive Centre Manchester dropped in with us and had a blast. There was a bit of moment of madness. Jo looked down to perform her NOTOX switch and found the 'permanent' marker had rubbed clean off during the dive! Luckily a bit of back up masking tape with biro revealed the mix and all was well!

A little bit of current made the team glad they'd set their deco mixes to the partial pressure to allow for a little exertion, butall in all, everybody agreed that it was a great morning. No doubt this was compunded by a leisurely lunch in Marsa Skala before returning.

New Shiny on Trial!! Could this be it for the VR3?!

Oooohoooooh! Shiny! Yep, folks, Alan's lovely new Helo2 Computer arrived for testing yesterday. So far, all our Technical Trimix divers have been VR3 converts, but when we heard about a near challenger coming out, we had to take a sneaky peak.

The review is so far that after re-adjusting to the Suunto button use compared to other models, the display is fantastic and its a cracking little piece of kit for your advanced technical diving.

We'll be letting you know more about its performance as Alan gets out and about with the Helo2 strapped on.

For now, we just thought we'd rub it in that the water is warm and we're off for some long deep dives off of the beautiful isle of Gozo today. Well done to Chris Hardy, who passed his Tec Trimix and all the best to Steve, who will hopefully be completing dive 12 of the Tec Deep Diver course today!